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OUTSIDE I RUN FROM the office. The hallway stretches out before me and it is endless. I’m in the air lock and it is windless. I’m outside and my breath is soundless. My heart is beatless. I vomit all the nothing in my stomach. Bile burns the back of my throat. I’m crying and the cool morning air chills the tears on my face. I’m laughing and the cold invades my lungs. I’m not sick. I’ve never been sick. All the emotions I’ve held in check over the past twenty-four hours crash over me. Hope and despair, anticipation and regret, joy and anger. How is it possible to have an emotion and its opposite at the same time? I’m struggling in a black ocean, a life jacket across my chest, an anchor on my leg. My mom catches up to me. Her face is a ruin of fear. “What are you doing? What are you doing? You have to get inside.” My vision tunnels and I hold her in my sights. “Why, Mom? Why do I have to go inside?” “Because you’re sick. Bad things could happen to you out here.” She reaches out to me to pull me toward her, but I jerk away from her. “No. I’m not going back in.” “Please,” she begs. “I can’t lose you, too. Not after everything.” Her eyes are on me, but I know without a doubt that she’s not seeing me at all. “I lost them. I lost your dad and I lost your brother. I couldn’t lose you, too. I just couldn’t.” Her face crumbles, falls completely apart. Whatever structures were holding it up give way in a sudden and catastrophic failure. She’s broken. She’s been broken for a long time. Carla was right. She never recovered from their deaths. I say something. I don’t know what, but she keeps talking. “Right after they died you got so, so sick. You wouldn’t breathe right and I drove you to the emergency room and we had to stay there for three days. And they didn’t know what was wrong. They said it was probably an allergy. They gave me a list of things to stay away from, but I knew it was more than that.” She nods her head. “I knew it was more than that. I had to protect you. Anything can happen to you out here.” She looks around. “Anything can happen to you out here. In the world.”
I should feel compassion. But that’s not what I feel. Anger rises in me and crowds everything else out. “I’m not sick,” I scream. “I’ve never been sick. You’re the one.” I stab the air in front of her face. I watch as she shrinks into herself and disappears. “Come inside,” she whispers. “I’ll protect you. Stay with me. You’re all I have.” Her pain is endless. It falls off the ends of the world. Her pain is a dead sea. Her pain is for me, but I cannot bear it anymore.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, c
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C O N T E N T S Cover Title Page Co
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More Than This Nurse Evil Neighborh
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Takeoff Forgiveness Life is Short T
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THE WHITE ROOM I’VE READ MANY mor
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SCID ROW MY DISEASE IS as rare as i
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“Perfect.” My mom peers over my
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STAYS THE SAME I’M READING ON my
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ALIEN INVASION, PART 2 I’M UP TO
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THE WELCOME COMMITTEE “CARLA,”
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NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH HIS MOM’S SCHE
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I SPY HIS FAMILY CALLS him Olly. We
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The bell rings again. My mom half r
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PIÈCE DE REJECTION BACK IN MY room
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I don’t think Carla has ever said
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FIRST CONTACT TWO DAYS PASS and I
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NIGHT FOUR I CAN’T STAND it. I pe
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NIGHT SIX THE BUNDT IS lying on a w
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FIRST CONTACT, PART TWO From: Madel
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Wednesday, 8:15 P.M. FIRST CONTACT,
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Olly: curiouser and curiouser madel
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Madeline: She must love somebody. I
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Olly: no. he made me quit the mathl
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Olly: come to the window Madeline:
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figure is different. This time he
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“Well, if I didn’t know before
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TWO HOURS LATER I TRY AGAIN. “It
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LATER STILL “PLEASE, CARLA—”
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“You trying to talk me out of it?
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OLLY THE SUNROOM IS my favorite roo
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he’s still, I can feel the need t
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DIAGNOSIS
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WONDERLAND AND IT’S THE wanting t
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MAKES YOU STRONGER THERE’S NO E-M
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NO YES MAYBE Monday, 8:09 P.M. Made
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TIME CARLA MAKES US wait a week bef
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FORECAST OLLY’S ON THE wall again
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There are too many inputs to the fo
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SECRETS MY CONSTANT IMING with Olly
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NUMEROLOGY NUMBER OF: minutes it to
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OLLY SAYS HE’S NOT ON the wall wh
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Olly finds himself getting angry, t
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going to go back to school soon. He
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UPSIDE DOWN NORMAL PEOPLE PACE when
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my finger in the palm of his hand.
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FRIENDSHIP Later, 8:16 P.M. Olly: y
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LIFE AND DEATH OLLY’S NOT ON the
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HONESTLY Later, 8:03 P.M. Olly: no
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preparing for a bout. He’s trying
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THE THIRD MADDY I’M ALMOST ASLEEP
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“That’s enough now,” my mom s
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MIRROR IMAGE I PULL THE curtains as
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MORE THAN THIS MY MOM WORDLESSLY kn
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NURSE EVIL MY NEW NURSE is an unsmi
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I stare at the note, remembering th
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HIGHER EDUCATION WITH OLLY BACK in
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ALOHA MEANS HELLO AND GOOD -BYE, PA
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LATER, 9:08 P.M. OLLY’S ALREADY W
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THE GLASS WALL A WEEK LATER, someth
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HALF LIFE IT’S A STRANGE thing to
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THE FIVE SENSES HEARING The alarm
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“Maddy—” “I’ll explain ev
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At first I’m not sure what I’m
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HAPPY ALREADY “MADS, BE SERIOUS.
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I reach over and take his hand. “
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eyes. “I must’ve missed a lot o
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TTYL
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THE CAROUSEL “I’VE DECIDED BAGG
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MADELINE’S DICTIONARY prom•ise
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And, too, the world is in me.
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REWARD IF FOUND OUR HOTEL SITS righ
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three meals and two snacks exactly
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eathed the same filtered air for so
Page 163 and 164: GUIDE TO HAWAIIAN REEF FISH
Page 165 and 166: I’m sure I don’t want him to. *
Page 167 and 168: ZACH BACK AT THE hotel, Olly calls
Page 169 and 170: Do you have my daughter? Is she OK?
Page 171 and 172: THE MURPHY BED IT’S LATE AFTERNOO
Page 173 and 174: ALL THE WORDS I COME AWAKE slowly,
Page 175 and 176: MADELINE’S DICTIONARY in•fi•n
Page 177 and 178: THIS TIME OLLY SMILES. HE will not
Page 179 and 180: “Do you believe it?” he asks.
Page 181 and 182: THE END SOMEONE HAS PUT me in a hot
Page 183 and 184: My. Heart. Stops.
Page 185 and 186: RELEASED, PART ONE
Page 187 and 188: READMITTED MY MOM HAS transformed m
Page 189 and 190: RELEASED, PART TWO Wednesday, 6:56
Page 191 and 192: Madeline: but mine isn’t
Page 193 and 194: GEOGRAPHY I’M IN AN endless field
Page 195 and 196: LIFE IS SHORT SPOILER REVIEWS BY MA
Page 197 and 198: PRETENDING I’M STRONGER WITH each
Page 199 and 200: I’m trying not to focus on Olly,
Page 201 and 202: FIVE SYLLABLES A MONTH LATER, just
Page 203 and 204: HIS LAST LETTER IS HAIKU From: gene
Page 205 and 206: FOR MY EYES ONLY From: Dr. Melissa
Page 207 and 208: question if I have spoken after all
Page 209 and 210: IDENTITY CARLA’S BARELY IN the do
Page 211 and 212: PROOF OF LIFE ALL I HAVE to do is g
Page 213: have SCID?” Her concern morphs in
Page 217 and 218: THE VOID A UNIVERSE THAT can wink i
Page 219 and 220: “But my heart stopped.” “Yes.
Page 221 and 222: ONE WEEK A.D. I HAVE MY first weekl
Page 223 and 224: THREE WEEKS A.D. MY MOM TRIES to en
Page 225 and 226: FIVE WEEKS A.D. I ORDER REAL plants
Page 227 and 228: MADELINE’S MOM
Page 229 and 230: lot left.” We go back inside. I f
Page 231 and 232: THE END IS THE BEGINNING IS THE END
Page 233 and 234: FUTURE PERFECT #2 From: Madeline F.
Page 235 and 236: FORGIVENESS I STARE OUT the window
Page 237 and 238: THIS LIFE EVEN AT 9 A.M. on a Satur
Page 239: choices you make and all the choice
Page 242 and 243: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS YOU ARE TRULY a tho
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